The Word Of Faith

Not all heroes die a noble death. Jacques de Lalaing, the flower of knighthood, who

was considered the pattern of chivalry for all of Europe, and who was called the last hero

of romance, died an early death in 1453. It was not of a lover’s broken heart, or in a

tournament with his flag flying. He walked into a cannon ball fired by a shopkeeper in

the little town of Ghent. That was not a very noble way for a hero to die, and the fact is

many of the heroes of history die very ignoble deaths.

There is nothing very glamorous about being fed to lions, or about being burned at

the stake, or even dying in a wreck, or by a disease. When you come right down to it,

there are not very many ways to die that are noble and glorious. It ought not to bother

us as to how we die, however, for this passage we are looking at reveals to us that the very

first saint to enter paradise died in the most horrible and ignoble way. He died on the

cross a victim of capital punishment in the worst possible way. Nevertheless, he is one of

the heroes of Christian history. It was not because of the way he died, but because of the

faith he expressed before he died. Because of his faith Good Friday was good for him

long before it was dreamed to be good for anybody else. He was not only first in

paradise, but he was the first man to experience the goodness of Good Friday. He died

on that day, but it was also the day he began to live forever. It was already Easter for

him. When I was just a small boy in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the lights went dim one

night and we all knew why. The only man ever to be electrocuted in the State

Penitentiary, just up the hill from where I lived, had just come to his inglorious end.

Years later I learned that George Sitts had put his faith in Christ months before he was

strapped in that electric chair. He studied his Bible and wrote his testimony that was

published for millions to read. He left this world by a horrible and disgraceful method,

but like the thief on the cross he died in faith.

Faith or the lack of faith is the difference between heaven and hell. There is no way

to over-emphasize the necessity and value of faith. Charles Wesley wrote, “Faith, mighty

faith the promise sees, and rests on that alone; Laughs at impossibilities, and says it shall

be done.” Only faith has the audacity to believe in the impossible and be hopeful in a

hopeless situation. What could be more hopeless than to be dying on a cross as a thief,

who is being rejected by society? Such is the setting we see on Calvary, and yet, faith

brings a dazzling glory into that dismal gloom. This dying thief, after rebuking his

criminal companion for his lack of faith, and after revealing his awareness of his own sin

and guilt, turned to the center cross and said, “Lord remember me when you come into

your kingdom.

If ever a man had reason to be pessimistic about the future it was this dying thief,

whom tradition has called Dumas. He had no future whatever according to the eye of

flesh, but Dumas saw the future through the eye of faith, and he had hope. He did not say

to Jesus that he wanted to be remembered if he came into his kingdom. He said he

wanted to be remembered when he came into his kingdom. He had complete confidence

that Jesus would be a victorious and conquering King who one day would rule over a

kingdom. That conviction was based on faith, for the evidence for it was conspicuous by

its absence. Jesus was dying just like he was. It looked as if his future was to be short

and filled with nothing but pain. He did not have the evidence of the resurrection like we

do. He did not have a long history of the power of Christ to change lives. All he had to

build his faith on was the presence of the suffering Savior.

Tholuck rightly asks, “Did ever the new birth take place in so strange a cradle?”

Calvary was a most unlikely context for a conversion. There was no beautiful church, no

glorious music, no flowers or choir. The environment was all wrong, for it was a setting

of horror and hate. The one positive factor that gave birth to faith, however, was the

eloquent love of Christ in the midst of that hate. “Father forgive them for they know not